


As From Beyond the Limit of the World

by Prochytes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A world in retrospect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As From Beyond the Limit of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for “The Diamond of the Day (Part Two)”. Angst and canonical character death. Written for Porn Battle XIV (Fiery Fourteen) on LJ in 2012, to the prompt “Merlin, Arthur/Gwen, last”.

There was a woman, and a man. There was a woman and a man, and they made love. There was a woman and a man, and they made love, and then there was a dawn, and a world ended.

 

When the wind changes on the seashore, the deep is blocked out with sudden shadow. You see the shadow, but the chill of the change dallies, for a wincing moment. There is a space between the sight of shadow, and the salt cold upon your skin. A moment’s grace.

 

Shadow on the water, and the slide of body over body in the tent. Salt on the lips, and a world is ended.

 

***

 

Percival comes back from the forest, and is not the same.

 

Percival is strong. Once, he was more. Once, he was Percival who locked a live boar in Leon’s quarters, who was sick for two days after drinking Elyan under a table. Now he is Percival the Strong, whose might exceeded that of root or branch, and bore Gwaine dead back to Camelot in his arms. 

 

Arthur Pendragon is the King Who Was and Yet Will Be. On the last night, he flushed like a schoolboy as she locked her thighs around him. He swore when she flipped him over, and the back of his head smacked against the ground. 

 

The names of the old world are currency now, rubbed smooth with use. Like all rubbed coins, they shine. But the work on the face is lost.

 

***

 

Merlin is Emrys is Merlin, and this was always true.

 

Some doubt him when he returns. He views them with tired eyes, and speaks a word. The earth recoils in horror beneath their feet. They fall silent.

 

Merlin’s power holds the world. Its grasp is firm and deft, like a teacher’s hands, compassing the waist of a young dancer. She does not know the name for the gathering of muscle beneath the skin of Arthur’s shoulder, when he lifted her, above the sway of the world, on that last night. 

 

Gaius would know. She does not ask.

 

***

 

Gwen is Guinevere. The years pass, and the new world swells and crackles into place, as ice shoulders its way from a cup too small to hold it. Gwen is Guinevere. She abides. 

 

FINIS


End file.
